Actress' brother says he only collects, doesn't sell porn films

Aspiring actress Misti Mukherjee's brother, Samarth, who was found with 25,000 CDs of sleazy films, says he is impotent and only likes to watch the movies at home; police had arrested him and his father for sale of obscene material

The 30-year-old man, who was arrested by the Oshiwara police for selling pornographic films from his flat in Lokhandwala, has told the police that he is a collector and watches the films at home for fun, as he is impotent. In their January 9 raid of the 5th floor apartment in the B wing of Meera Tower, cops had seized around 25,000 CDs containing pornographic material (‘25,000 porn CDs recovered from BEST GM’s house’, January 10).

Chandrakant Mukherjee (circled, right) and his son Samarth (circled, left) at the Oshiwara police station

The flat is owned by BEST General Manager Omprakash Gupta, who had given it out on rent to the Mukherjee family. The police had arrested Samarth Mukherjee (30) and his father Chandrakant (58) for allegedly selling pornographic material beyond a specific number under Section 292 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 66 of the IT Act. Samarth is the brother of an aspiring actress, Misti Mukherjee.

The police had also recovered a laptop and hard disk from the apartment and were investigating what the two contained. The father-son duo were presented before court and were remanded to judicial custody on Wednesday. The police officers said that when they checked the hard disk, they found more than 100 porn films that had been downloaded from the Internet, “We are still investigating whether the father-son duo were involved in the sale of these CDs and films,” said API Ravindra Patil from Oshiwara police station.

MiD DAY’s report on the raid

Police said that Samarth had been questioned about the large number of CDs in his house, to which he had replied that he was a collector and had not sold any. In fact, he claimed to be impotent. “Samarth had told us in his statement that he liked watching the films in the privacy of his home, since he was impotent,” said Patil.

Officers also found over 50 pictures of women on Samarth’s mobile phone. “When we asked him who these women were, he said he they were strangers. He said he had clicked photos of women on the street whom he found beautiful. When we asked him whether he had morphed the photos, he denied this. We checked and did not find any morphed photos on his laptop or hard disk,” added Patil.

Samarth told police that as he and his sister were struggling to make a mark in Bollywood, his father paid the Rs 80,000 rent for the flat. Around 130 IAS and IPS officers have flats in the high-rise located in a posh neighbourhood near Mega Mall in Oshiwara. The members of the building have asked the Mukherjee family to vacate the flat.